David Pugh was born in 1946 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He was mainly a self-taught painter, influenced by Lawren Harris and J.E.H. MacDonald, although he studied briefly at the University of Calgary in 1968.
Pugh is best known for his oil and acrylic paintings of mountain and glacier landscapes and his use of bold colour and simple shapes. Pugh sought to use his art in “bringing a non-existent world into existence,” painting landscapes including those around the Bow Valley, Canmore, and the Rocky Mountains, looking for the “discovery of self within the context of nature.”
Pugh works were widely exhibited beginning in 1968, and his work is represented in the collections of the Alberta Art Foundation, Government of Canada, Confederation Centre Art Gallery and Museum (Charlottetown), Glenbow Museum (Calgary), Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies (Banff), Bank of Nova Scotia and Petro-Canada, among many others.
David Pugh passed away in 1994.
